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Sunday, August 02, 2009

summer conversations

description:

Four casual events bringing together the countless faith life connections! Participate in one, all four, in two or in three. As we explore and consider aspects of living together as a pentecostal community in the power of the Holy Spirit, discussions will particularly focus on the identity of Jesus Christ as Lord of the Church and our identity in Christ as the Church.

Topics may include: baptism as a countercultural event; boundaries and borders; centers, thresholds and edges of spaces and places around us and beyond us; Holy Communion as a welcome table of justice and reconciliation for all creation.

Location: Church Library

Days and dates: Thursdays August 6, 13, 20, 27

Time: 4-5 PM

Facilitator: Leah Chang

Teachers and learners: everyone

A Pentecostal community: Time of the Spirit; Season of the Church

1. A baptized community: Water and the Word

The living waters of baptism are border and boundary between our old, disconnected, alienated existence and our new life in the community that is the Body of the Crucified and Risen Christ.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus…

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

2. Spaces, places, locations…

1st, 2nd, and 3rd spaces, (4th?) places in cyberspace; the liminal, the marginal and the central; thresholds, edges and centers

…in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth!

Insiders, outsiders, strangers and friends

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

3. Jesus, Us, Culture, Counterculture

God beyond time and space became incarnate for us in Jesus of Nazareth, lived among us and shared our human experience.

We’re coming to the edge, running on the water, coming through the fog, your sons and daughters. Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation. Come, the New Jerusalem.

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

4. A Eucharistic community: the Welcome Table

An inclusive meal as well as a feast of justice and righteousness accomplished on earth for all creation.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Then I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem…